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Now let me share something with you about an attitude of obedience. In Ephesians 6:1-3 Paul writes:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

God has a family. He is the Father, the Head of that family, and we are the children. Surely, anything He would tell children in the natural to do, He would expect from His spiritual children. In fact, everything I have learned about being a good father to my children has come from God. The similitude of my fatherhood comes from God. In other words, anything good that I do as an earthly father was imparted to me from God, my heavenly Father.

I've had some situations with my two daughters. When they became teenagers, I had to lay down some new rules. These rules were not always too popular with the girls. There have been times when they have disobeyed me.

(They knew better, but they did it anyway.) Well, it was not pleasing to me, and it was not well with them. When I come home and find that my daughters have been disobedient, that they have rebelled against the instructions I left, I don't like it. I expect my girls to obey. When they don't, things definitely don't go well with them.

What pleases me most is when they obey what I say without argument. I detest argument when instructions have been given. I don't like

that in any kind of relationship, and neither does God. It is dishonorable to argue with God.

I don't want my children to argue with me, but I also don't want them to ignore what I tell them. Have you ever grabbed your child and said, "Listen to me! Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, sir, I'm listening."

"What did I say?"

"I don't know, but I'm listening."

Many times God is trying to tell us something, but we are so busy doing something else that we don't hear Him. "God told me to give that away, but I don't want to, so I'll just act like I didn't hear what He said." If your child did that, you would spank him. Do you see what disobedience does? It opens the door to the adversary.

When God has given us instructions which we refuse to obey, it's not God who beats us in the flesh—it's the Devil. God is the Father of spirits. He chastises His children with His Word. He will scourge (beat on) us with His Word. God is a spiritual Father; He does not use carnal methods to train spirits.

As a father in the natural, I use words and

rods. The Bible says, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son." (Prov. 13:24). My kids know I love them, just as my dad loved me.

But God uses words. If I rebel at His words, it's almost as if He has to fold His arms and say,

"I'm trying to tell you, but you've decided you want to learn it the hard way." And He just has to back off and let us have our little experience.

Someone has said, "Yes, but experience is the best teacher." No, experience is second best. The Holy Ghost is still number one. If we will obey God, we will learn the easy way.

Most people are hard-headed. I was so hard-headed in the past. I wanted an experience. So God would back away and say,

"Okay, have your experience then." Later I would say, "I'll never do that again!" I could have saved myself that hard lesson if I had listened to God.

My dad used to try to get through to me when I was a teenager. You see, I was a hotrodder, always drag racing in the streets, and Dad didn't like it. He would say, "Son, if you don't quit drag racing in the streets, I'm going to take your keys away from you. You're going to tear up your car. You could hurt

yourself and endanger the lives of others. I'm not going to put up with it." He told me all the consequences that could happen if I continued to disobey. Do you know why? He didn't want me endangered. He didn't want my life snuffed out because of some foolishness. He knew what he was talking about.

But as a youngster, I thought I knew more than Dad. As children we think we know it all.

Some of God's kids think they know more than He does. They have the same attitude toward Him as youngsters sometimes have toward their parents: "Oh, what does He know? He doesn't understand." If only we could learn once and for all that God knows what is best for us! Then obedience would be so much easier and quicker for us. We could save ourselves so much misery. But, no, sometimes we just have to learn the hard way.

My dad told me why I shouldn't drag race in the street. He told me what would happen if I continued to do so, but I ignored his advice.

At first, it wasn't deliberate. I would just get tempted to race. I would be fine until somebody pulled up next to me and revved his engine. I really didn't intend to race. I didn't

intend to break the law or to disobey Dad, but I couldn't resist the temptation. I couldn't refuse a challenge.

Then one time I left the rear end of my car laying in the middle of the street when I blew up the transmission. When I got home, Dad asked, "What did you do?"

"Drag raced in the street."

"What happened?"

"Tore up my car."

"Didn't I tell you that would happen?"

"Yes, sir."

“Why didn't you obey me?"

"I will now."

Isn't that dumb? But that's what we do. We grow up with that kind of attitude, then we let it carry over into our relationship with our Father God. All God is asking us to do is to obey and serve Him because He knows what is best for us. He led the path of Jesus through this earth, and Jesus was a total success.

God knows the pitfalls along our way. The Bible says He will show us things to come.

(John 16:13.) He knows how to lead us through

this life if we are willing to obey and serve Him.